Those Shrouded in Dim Light
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: AU. Harry didn't understand the world outside his cupboard and his relatives. When he was finally let out of his dark prison, he sought the closest thing to their indifferent cruelty he could find. Harry/Snape slash.
1. The Absence of Thought

Author's Notes: Goes AU from Harry's early years living with the Dursleys. Also, this was written prior to DH, but because the fic is eventually so AU, it's actually only noticeable in relation to Snape and Lily's backstory. If you can suspend disbelief long enough to just go with the fact that Snape in no way liked Lily Evans here, we're all good.

* * *

**PART ONE – The Absence of Thought**

He knew a little of the world outside, but only a _very_ little. Only what the others in the house whispered about when they were close enough to his door that he could hear them, even though they tried to make sure he couldn't. They didn't want to give him ideas. Harry may not have known much, but he knew that. They'd drilled the fact that ideas were very bad things into his head as soon as he was old enough to understand, and then they'd hidden him away so that he'd never really have to worry about ideas anyway. How many things were there in a cupboard under the stairs that one could actually have ideas about?

There was dust. Harry knew that word because Petunia – ma'am, as he'd been forced to call her whenever she allowed him to actually directly address her, but he'd heard the man, Vernon, or _sir_, say her real name a enough times to know it – fought a constant and very loud battle against dust. She spoke of it in the same tone of voice that she spoke of him. _That boy. Dust_. These were words that were spat out as if they left a horrid taste in the mouth. Harry didn't think that words actually left a taste, but he couldn't be certain. He didn't often speak, so perhaps he'd just never had opportunity to say such distasteful things.

There were spiders. He quite liked the spiders. He liked watching them move about, bobbing and weaving about the cupboard as if it was the largest space the little creatures could possibly want or imagine. Harry, who could barely move a foot away from his mattress in any direction before he ran into a wall, knew that he could never experience such freedom for himself. Watching the spiders would have to be enough, he decided. "Those creepy-crawly spiders," as Vernon had once laughed heartily outside his door, "are the only friends you'll ever have, boy. Get used to it." That was how he had known what to call his little companions, though it had taken him a while longer to realise what the word 'friends' could possibly mean.

Harry couldn't really get 'ideas' about dust or spiders, or any of the other constants in the cupboard where he'd spent his childhood. He didn't even know what half of it was, for he only ever knew those rudimentary things Petunia had taught him when he was quite young so that he would understand her orders, as well as a few other things he'd picked up from listening in on the others' conversations.

His life was only what Petunia allowed him. It was the same every day. A routine, of sorts, had been put into place so that he didn't get used to having the freedom of movement that might bring about the dreaded 'ideas'. Wake up. Wait at the back of the cupboard for the door to open. Allow Petunia to place a slice or two of bread on the floor and lock the door once more. Eat the bread, heedless of the layer of dust that often acted as an unwanted spread. Wait for the door to open. Use the bathroom, while Petunia watched with her beady sort of eyes that sometimes made it hard to do what was expected of him, when Harry made the mistake of thinking too hard about it before he reminded himself that he was not to think. Allow himself to be escorted back to his cupboard. Lie staring at the ceiling and the spiders. Wait for the door to open once more, at which point in time he would receive what Petunia called leftovers in that hateful tone, as if they were a bad thing; Harry couldn't quite figure out why they might be, since they were actually much better than the plain bread he got. Eat the leftovers. Be accompanied to the bathroom again, and drink water out of the tap. Shower, if it happened to be one of the days he was allowed to. Then back to the cupboard to sleep, and have vague dreams of the next day being better that he never allowed himself to remember when he next woke the next day to the same routine.

He never in his waking hours spared enough consideration to any one thought to have ideas about changing the way of things. He stared at the cupboard door for hours every day, trying to shut his mind off against the thoughts of _out there_ and _locks_. He somehow knew that if he thought too hard about it – if a stray notion popped into his head, even without him meaning it to – he would come up with a plan. He would attempt to make his life better. And if that happened, Petunia would somehow find out before he could put the plan into action, and he would be punished.

Punishment was the only thing that got him out of his cupboard that wasn't actually part of the routine, though at times in the past he'd been punished so often that it might as well have been. There was a time that he'd thought it might be worth it, just to see the outside, the house, for a little longer than normal. The sheer pain he'd suffered as a result of his intentional trouble-making at that time was enough to put a quick stop to that. That had been the last plan he'd ever allowed himself to come up with and actually execute, though somehow they still cropped up into his consciousness every once in a while. He couldn't stop it, as much as he would have liked to.

At least his ideas had never led to 'freaky things' happening, as he'd once heard Petunia breathe a sigh of relief over. He didn't like to think of the level of punishment Vernon would have inflicted upon him had that been the case.


	2. Long Shadows

**PART TWO – Long Shadows**

Harry knew something was out of the ordinary when there was screaming from outside his door. It was probably Petunia, judging from the shrillness, though Harry had heard Dudley emit equally high-pitched noises once or twice over the years. Harry had not actually seen Dudley at all since he was confined to the cupboard, and even then it was only glances of a round body and blonde hair plastered to a wide head. He was not to be trusted around Dudley, according to Petunia, who'd had Vernon belt him the one time he dared to ask about why he never saw the other boy.

The screaming was abnormal for precisely the same reason that Harry wasn't to be trusted on his own out in the rest of the house. The others in the house hated drawing attention to the family. Supposedly the knowledge of Harry's presence would do that. He was sure that shrieking would do so as well. For this reason, Harry was curious, though he tried to stamp the feeling down. Vernon had once told him that curiosity killed something-or-other. Harry couldn't remember exactly what it had been, but he'd had a terrible feeling Vernon might have really mean _him_.

There was a shuddering beneath Harry's feet far greater than that made by Vernon or even Dudley when they walked past his cupboard. Yet, he felt certain that it was footsteps, for each tremor was slightly bigger than the last, and seemed closer to him. Harry wondered who or what could possibly cause something like that. He had always assumed that Vernon had to be one of the largest people in the world, for he was so much bigger than Petunia. Though, he supposed, Dudley must be bigger than Vernon, for the floor shook more when he ran past, and dust floated down from the stairs onto Harry's body when Dudley went up them. One day Dudley would get so large he'd just pop like those big round colourful things Dudley had had scattered all about the house for his last birthday. Harry hadn't much liked the noise when those had burst.

Harry turned his eyes down, as was expected, when the door to his cupboard was opened, amidst lots of yelling and threats to 'knock it off its hinges' if it wasn't unlocked immediately. He wanted to look up, especially when the light from the doorway was almost entirely blocked off as something – some_one_ – stepped in front of it, casting a large shadow over the room.

"Harry!" a loud voice boomed. No one ever used his name to his face, though he knew what it was regardless. He was usually just 'that boy' (or sometimes 'brat', if he was being directly spoken to). The shock of being addressed in such a manner caused him to look up. And up. He had to lean forward slightly to see the face of the stooping man, who could barely stand up straight in the house, let alone get through the low-set cupboard door without bending practically in half.

"There yeh are! Now come out so's I can get a look at yeh!" the large man ordered.

"Come… come out?" Harry repeated uncertainly, his voice scratchy from lack of use. He looked at Petunia and Vernon for confirmation that he could do as the man said, but they were both more interested in glaring at the man himself – and trying not to appear afraid of him, if Harry wasn't mistaken – to care about Harry's worry that he'd be punished.

He wasn't given a real choice, though. Before he could steel himself for the feel of Vernon's hand clipping him behind the head, or worse, and step out of the cupboard, the gigantic man reached forward and grabbed the front of Harry's shirt with a hand – no, a _paw_ – twice the size of Vernon's. It didn't hurt as he pulled Harry out, exactly, but that didn't slow Harry's thundering heart.

"Yeh look just like yer father," the man claimed. As Harry couldn't remember having ever seen his father, he couldn't comment, not that he would have. He didn't dare question what such a large man said. If _he_ hit Harry with a belt, he'd probably take half his skin off. Or maybe just cut Harry clean in half. Harry winced at the mere thought of it.

"My father?" he eventually breathed, his voice low so that there would be some chance that Vernon and Petunia wouldn't hear, and thus couldn't punish him. He wasn't supposed to question things or speak unless told to do so, after all. He half hoped the large man hadn't heard either, just in case he upheld the same rules of silence as the others.

Luckily, even as he spoke, Vernon was talking over the top of him in a much louder and more insistent voice. "I demand that you leave!" he shouted. "You've barged your way inside _my house_ without so much as an introduction –"

"Introduction, yeh say?" the man boomed. "Well, tha's easy to fix. The name's Rubeus Hagrid. I'm the groundskeeper at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." He looked down at Harry in what he could only describe as a friendly manner, though he couldn't imagine how a man that large and imposing could be all that friendly. "Jus' call me Hagrid."

Witchcraft and wizardry? But he'd heard Petunia tell Dudley once that there was no such thing as witches, or magic. Petunia didn't often lie to Dudley, from what Harry could gather. She didn't need to. Anything she said, she would do, regardless of effort or expense, where her 'little Diddydums' was concerned. And a boy of Dudley's size would hardly need to be protected from the bad things in life. If a witch attacked him, he could probably just sit on her.

"Hogwarts," Petunia practically squeaked. "But he's not… he's never… he hasn't done any strange things, like _she_ used to do."

Harry wondered, in that moment, if Petunia knew that magic was real after all. But then, those whispered conversations his keen ears had picked up on once or twice over his time in the cupboard made a lot more sense if that was the case.

Hagrid looked almost sheepish at that. "Well, yeh see… we know all tha'. But young Harry 'ere's been in the books since he was born, and there's other things tha' should've meant... well, Headmaster Dumbledore's curious as to why… Anyway, he needs to _see_ the boy."

Ah, there. Back to familiar grounds, being called 'the boy' rather than 'Harry'. It was a little frightening to realise that he by far preferred the usual form of address to his real name. He didn't think that was very normal, though he could hardly be certain based on his own experience with the rest of the world thus far.

"So you'll be taking him for good, then?" Vernon asked, sounding quite pleased at the prospect.

"Er, well, Dumbledore's orders were jus' to bring him to Hogwarts," Hagrid replied doubtfully. But then the giant seemed to remember where he was, and what had just happened. "But I bet once he hears of yeh lot keepin' him locked away in a cupboard, he'll take him in righ' away. He's a great man, Dumbledore is."

"If you take him, we won't take him back," Petunia said decisively. "You'll put _ideas_ into his head, and I refuse to have to look after the little brat if he's going to be running about waving sticks at us and the like! He's trained to be quiet for a reason!"

"Trained!" Hagrid roared. "Brainwashed, more like, I'll jus' bet. Wouldn' put it past yeh lot. Tha's it. Harry, yer coming with me. Even if yeh turn out to be a squib and the school can't take yeh, I'll take yeh in myself!"

With that, he grabbed Harry by the collar of his threadbare shirt – one of Dudley's cast-offs, he was fairly certain, for it was very large on Harry, and the boy standing off in the corner was _very large_ as well – and practically dragged him away.

Harry stumbled terribly as he approached the front door of the house. It had been years since he'd even been near it, and he'd never been actually _through_ it, that he could remember. Surely Hagrid couldn't mean for them to…

But apparently he did, for just moments later they were outside. Not just outside as in _out there_, out in the parts of the house that weren't the cupboard, but _outside_ the house itself.

It was brighter outside than in. Even when the curtains were open, the sun didn't shed as much light inside the house as the air outside seemed to be bathed in. Harry squinted against the glare. He didn't understand why people would subject themselves to that, if they could help it. It made his eyes hurt. But then, he supposed, it might be worse for him because he'd never been out here before.

Eventually it seemed to grow a little less startling. The next things he noticed were the large figures standing stationary around the area. They had thick brown bodies, topped with green. Harry had caught sight of one for a moment through one of the windows in the house. He hadn't known what it was then, either, nor had he been stupid enough to ask about it. He hadn't realised that there were lots of them, in all different shapes and sizes. He wondered whether they were animals. He knew a little about animals. But then, he'd been sure that animals would move more than that. The large things seemed to sway just a bit up around their green areas, but their bodies stayed stiff, as if rooted to the ground.

"What are they?" Harry whispered, pointing. He silently wished that Hagrid wouldn't hit him for asking the question.

But Hagrid didn't hit him. Rather, he didn't seem to know what Harry was talking about. Harry described the things he was pointing at.

"Trees?" Hagrid asked incredulously.

Harry frowned slightly, attempting to imprint this new knowledge in his brain. "Trees," he repeated.

"Blimey, Harry, yeh can't mean yeh've never seen a tree before? Haven't yer aunt and uncle ever told you 'bout 'em? Haven't you _seen_ 'em before?"

"Aunt and uncle?" Harry asked, more confident in speaking now that he'd evaded punishment once already.

"The Muggles in there, the ones yeh live with."

"Oh," Harry said. Vernon and Petunia, then. They were his aunt and uncle, whatever that meant. But then… "What's a Muggle?"

"Folks who can't use magic," Hagrid responded.

Harry didn't quite know what a folk was, but that didn't seem to be the most important point at hand at that moment. "Am I a Muggle then?" he asked. "I didn't even know there was magic until today."

Hagrid seemed uncomfortable. "Er, tha's what Dumbledore wants to find out. But Harry, back to wha' yeh were sayin' before. Yeh can't mean tha' yeh've never been outside before?"

Harry shrugged. "They kept me inside because I wasn't to be trusted," he responded automatically, gesturing to the house. The house itself caught his eye, and Harry turned slightly to look at it. "Oh," he breathed. "So that's what a house looks like from the outside."

Hagrid's eyes seemed to bulge away from his head. "Tha's it, I'm taking yeh to Dumbledore. He'll be better equipped fer this."


	3. A Congregation of Pitying Glances

******PART THREE – A Congregation of Pitying Glances**

After getting on and off a large purple thing that looked a bit like a small house and jerked about more than if twenty Dudleys were running about outside his cupboard while they were inside it, Harry and Hagrid got off at a completely different location. He didn't quite understand what had happened, but he didn't dare ask Hagrid. He was fairly certain he'd annoyed the man with all of his questions, for he'd suddenly become rather irritated and stopped speaking. Harry didn't want to push him. He shuddered to think what punishment from a man who was that big would be like.

Hagrid guided Harry silently along a road, and a very large kind of house – Hagrid eventually referred to it as a castle – emerged from the tops of the trees. Hagrid pointed out his own much smaller house as they passed it on their way to the castle.

Climbing the many flights of stairs in the castle to get where they wanted seemed to take almost as much time as actually getting to the castle in the first place. One of the staircases even moved just before they got on it, forcing them to go a longer way, according to Hagrid. By the time they reached a large stone structure, which also moved when Hagrid said, "Sherbet lemon," to it, Harry was very much out of breath. He wasn't used to anywhere near as much walking as he'd done today. His legs hurt much more than they normally did just from having to curl up in his cupboard.

Hagrid led Harry up a set of stairs into a large circular-looking room with a great deal of strange odds and ends about the place. Even the walls were strange. Like the house he'd grown up in, there were pictures of people on the walls. Harry had never been in those pictures, of course, so he wasn't quite sure about the point of them. However, unlike those pictures, the ones in this new place _moved_, as if they were alive. Harry wondered whether the people in them were trapped inside, much like he'd been stuck in his cupboard.

"I say," one of them, a man wearing a pointy hat among many pictures of the same, said, "he looks far too small to be a student. And so very pale!"

There was a murmur of agreement from the people actually standing around in the room who weren't part of the pictures, and Harry's attention focused fully on them for the first time.

Harry had never seen so many people at once, not even on the purple thing, and he was fairly certain he'd never seen anyone as… well, grey, as a lot of them. He was pretty sure that meant that they were old, for he'd heard Petunia talking of how she couldn't possibly be getting grey hair yet, as young as she was. There were only a few among them that had no grey. One of them, Harry noted, was a man who was instead entirely composed black but for his skin, which was almost as white as Harry's, though it had a faintly yellowish tinge to it. It was this man that drew Harry's eyes. Where the rest of them all looked at Harry with strange expressions on their faces, that man's face was very familiar to him. He looked at him just like Vernon and Petunia did. His face proclaimed to the world that he didn't like Harry. That made him feel a lot more comfortable than the others' smiles and looks Harry had never seen before in his life did. It was familiar.

"Welcome to Hogwarts, Harry," one of the people eventually said. Harry looked at the man long enough to note that he had long white hair hanging off the lower part of his face itself, which was actually tucked into his clothing, as well as a smile that Harry could just make out past the abundant hair and strange sparkling eyes. Very soon, however, the man's gaze made Harry feel quite anxious, and his eyes drifted back to the man in black almost without him knowing it.

"I am Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster of the school," the old man continued. Harry nodded slightly in acknowledgement, though he did not look again. So that was the man Hagrid kept talking about. He certainly looked nice enough. It was a pity that that particular quality was what made Harry so uncomfortable.

When Harry said nothing, the Headmaster continued. "The other people here are professors."

"Professors?" Harry asked. He was beginning to feel extremely foolish, for everyone seemed to expect him to understand all of these words and concepts, but he had never heard them before. He didn't want to have to keep asking, but how else was he supposed to find things out? Besides, these people seemed less likely to punish him than Vernon and Petunia, and some of them looked like they would surely keel over if they so much as picked up a belt regardless.

Then again, that was what made him uneasy. Back when he was in the cupboard, he knew what to expect. If he asked questions, he was punished. Here, he wasn't sure what he was and wasn't allowed to do, or when the need for punishment would arise. It made him nervous. How could he avoid getting himself hurt when he didn't know what he was supposed to _do_?

"Teachers," Dumbledore corrected himself. Harry's face must have still looked blank, for Dumbledore frowned and continued, "They show children how to perform magic and look after their wellbeing."

"Petunia did that for me when I was little," Harry nodded, "but with talking and stuff, not magic. She wanted me to understand what she was saying to me, she said, so she could give me orders." He allowed himself a slight smile, proud that he understood something almost on his own.

No one in the room, not even the black-clothed man, looked particularly pleased by this. Harry's smile quickly faded.

"Did she teach you other things?" Dumbledore asked. "Did she teach you to read?"

Harry shook his head. "She said I wouldn't ever have to know. Reading's for normal children, like Dudley. She said that if bad children like me read, it puts _ideas_ in their heads." Harry shuddered. "She doesn't like ideas."

"Did they beat you?" one of the teachers, a woman, interjected. She sounded angry, and Harry flinched away slightly. They obviously wanted to know what Vernon and Petunia did so that they could follow their example.

Harry nodded dejectedly. "When I did something bad, or Petunia thought I was getting ideas, Vernon would hit me with his belt. Are you going to hit me like that?"

The woman gasped. "Of course not! Oh, you poor child, that you would think that. That's it; I'm taking you up to Poppy right now to get you checked over. There's no telling what those Muggles have done to you!"

With that, she stepped forward and reached for his hand. Harry shied away. What was poppy? Was it some kind of torture device, like the kind that Dudley used to whisper through his cupboard door that Vernon would use on Harry the next time he stepped out of line. Dudley had whispered a lot of things to Harry when the adults weren't around to see their precious son hanging around the door of 'that freak boy'. Harry hadn't wanted to hear any of them.

"It's all right, Harry," Dumbledore assured him, his voice emotionless, as he waved the woman back. She looked perplexed at his behaviour, much like Petunia looked when he'd do something that earned him punishment, as if she couldn't believe he didn't know better.

"Stop mollycoddling the boy," the man in black bit out. Harry almost smiled in relief. He sounded just like Vernon did when Harry wasn't actually in trouble; annoyed at Harry's mere existence, though not truly enraged. "I assure you that nearly every child at Hogwarts has received a sound disciplining when they've stepped out of line, and every one of them would cry to the world that they'd been beaten half to death if they were given the chance."

"You didn't see it!" Hagrid protested from behind Harry. "They kept him locked in a cupboard jus' long enough fer him to stretch out in. He'd not even seen the outside of the house 'til I took him away. He didn't know wha' a tree was!"

"Sorry," Harry whispered. Again, they were all giving him that strange look.

"Oh, yes," the dark man snarled. "Let's all _pity_ Harry Potter, the boy hero. First you want to pity him because he's a squib, and now because he had a bad childhood. There are worse things in life than to be sheltered from the world, and unneeded pity is one of them."

Pity. Was that what that look was? They pitied him? He didn't think he liked that. From how the man said it, it didn't sound like a good thing to be pitied. Rather like being hated, he supposed, though at least he'd seen enough of that emotion directed toward him to become somewhat comfortable with it.

"Potter," Harry said, barely even noticing the word leave his lips. It was like his mouth had taken on a mind of his own, now that it'd got an inkling that it was allowed to be used for talking at all. "Is that my other name? Like Dursley is Vernon and Petunia's other name?"

"It's your family name," one of the teachers confirmed. "Your surname."

"So my parents…"

"Your parents were Lily and James Potter."

Harry bit his lip. "Oh. All right. Were they good people?"

The dark teacher snorted from the corner, though he didn't actually say anything.

Dumbledore nodded slowly. "Most people would agree that they were quite decent people, and they did some very good things when they were alive."

"Petunia told me once that they were drunks, and they died in a car crash. I don't really know what a car crash is, but Petunia talks a lot about drunks. They don't sound like good people."

Even the man with the hooked nose looked surprised now.

"That's not how they died, Harry," Dumbledore assured him. "We'll get into the details later if you like. For now, though, I think you might have had a big enough day." The old man glanced around the room at the teachers. "Your testing can wait. We'll organise to do it at a later date."

"What are you testing?" Harry asked.

"Nothing that cannot wait," Dumbledore reiterated. "Right now, it's more important that we have you taken care of. Minerva, will you take him up to see Poppy?"

Harry jerked away as she neared him. 'Taken care of', he'd said. It sounded ominous. And they were talking about that poppy thing again, which worried him in its own right.

"It's really all right, Mr Potter," the strict-looking lady assured him. With her severe face and no-nonsense attitude, she reminded him a little of Petunia. But then she smiled, and Harry shook his head, stumbling backwards.

"No!" he cried out, then flinched away waiting for the beating. When it didn't come, he felt justified in his reaction. He couldn't predict this woman at all. "You're not safe. I… I don't know what you'll do."

Many of the adults seemed puzzled. Dumbledore merely looked thoughtful.

"Are there any of the Professors you would feel safe with?" he queried.

Harry bit his lip. He raised his arm and pointed across the room. Heads swivelled and all the people looked taken-aback. However, none of them were anywhere near as shocked as the man Harry had selected.


	4. The Care of Innocent Children

**********PART FOUR – The Care of Innocent Children**

"No," the man who had eventually been introduced to Harry as Professor Severus Snape said. "Don't even ask. I can tell exactly what you're thinking, Headmaster. I needn't even be a Legilimens to see the thought behind that look in your eyes."

"It would only be for a few days, Severus. Just until he's had a little time to settle in and become a little more comfortable with the other teachers. Hagrid would be very pleased to take him, when Harry's ready."

"_No_," Snape repeated. Harry frowned. He understood that no one particularly wanted him, but even Vernon and Petunia had never been quite that adamant. They'd locked him away, certainly, but they had still taken him in. "You want someone who'll tell him wonderful stories about his parents and reassure him that it doesn't really matter that he's a squib, even though the entire wizarding world looks up to him as some kind of superhero or saviour."

"Now, Severus, we don't know for sure that he's a squib. It's entirely possible –"

"He's eleven years old and hasn't shown any sign at all of having magic! Of course he's a squib! Even if he has some magical power in him, it wouldn't be enough for him to attend Hogwarts, so he might as well be a squib, for all the good it will do him."

Ah, thought Harry. So a squib was someone who didn't do magic. He'd thought that that was a Muggle, from what Hagrid had told him, but perhaps they were just different words for the same thing. This new place was confusing, but he felt certain he could pick up enough information to cope with it, given time, especially since these people didn't seem to mind the idea of him learning things like Petunia had done.

Though, then again, learning aside, he didn't know how well he would cope if Professor Snape wouldn't agree to help him. He didn't think he could stay with any of the others. They frightened him with their kindness, though something deep in Harry recognised just how wrong that was. He was fairly certain he remembered a time when he'd wanted Petunia and Vernon to show him the same kind of attention they'd always shown Dudley, after all. He must have longed for kindness then, but that was so very long ago, and he'd long since become accustomed to the true way of things.

"No, Headmaster, I've done enough for you. I even brought the brat up to the hospital wing for you! But what you're asking is too much. I cannot do it."

Harry had indeed been taken to what they called the hospital wing. He was very pleased to find that 'Poppy' was a woman, not some kind of punishment. Her ever-chipper attitude made him uncomfortable, and the things she made him drink were unfamiliar and only reminded him how hungry he was, but it was nothing like as bad as he'd expected. He was, according to Poppy – or Madam Pomfrey, as Dumbledore had introduced her to him – now physically right as rain, as soon as he got some rest. "And some food," she added, looking Harry up and down critically. "He looks as though he hasn't eaten in weeks."

"Right you are, Poppy," the Headmaster agreed. "And as soon as Severus agrees to give him bed and board for a few days, he shall receive just that."

"I…" Harry started, and trailed off as the bickering between the two older men faded away and they both looked at him. Harry looked Snape in the eyes and wondered whether the coloured parts in the man's eyes were black as well as everything else about him, or whether he was different enough from everyone else that his eyes simply didn't _have_ coloured parts. Either way, they were certainly a far cry from Harry's own bright green eyes, which one of the teachers had claimed he'd inherited from his mother. Whatever 'inherited' meant. Did they think he'd stolen them from her? He couldn't imagine how. He didn't even remember her.

"I'm sorry that I'm a squib," Harry continued, anxiously watching Snape, hoping for approval. Vernon and Petunia had always liked it when he apologised, though it didn't usually make a difference to how much he was punished in the long run anyway. They had to put him in his place, after all. "But I don't take up much room. You wouldn't even notice me. If you had a spare cupboard…"

For the first time since he'd seen him, Harry thought Dumbledore looked angry. "No one will be living in any cupboards, Harry," he informed him. "Will they, Severus?"

Severus sneered at Dumbledore. "He put you up to that, didn't he brat?" he asked, and though he was looking at the Headmaster, Harry could tell that it was him who was being addressed.

"No."

"No, _sir_," Snape corrected. "If I'm to be saddled with you indefinitely, you will address me with the proper respect."

Harry shook his head, his eyes wide. "But Vernon was always 'sir'. I couldn't…"

Snape looked for a moment as if he would hold his ground. However, it wasn't long before he cleared his throat, and with a threatening sort of glare said, "Well, then. I suppose 'Professor' will do just as well. Mind that you always use it to address me, though, or there will be consequences."

It might have been Harry's imagination, but he thought that the Professor's eyes might have softened just a little after that. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.


	5. A Test of Strength

**************PART FIVE – A Test of Strength**

"Potter. Potter! Harry Potter!"

"What?" Harry asked, spinning around at the sound of his name. His first name, at least. Even though he hadn't quite liked the idea of anyone referring to him by that name, since it had felt wrong, he'd grown a bit more used to it. Certainly, he was quicker to recognise the sound of it then his family name. Although the Professor kept calling him 'Potter', he wasn't used to it enough to ever quite remember to respond to it. He wished that Professor Snape would just call him Harry. 'Boy' would be preferable, as well.

"The Headmaster has called upon us," Snape said. "We are expected at his office in ten minutes. I refuse to be late simply because you cannot tie a pair of shoelaces."

Harry frowned back down at the things on his feet. "I never had to wear shoes before."

Snape rolled his eyes at him, glancing toward the ceiling as if expecting that something up there would help him. Harry didn't think there was much of anything up there, apart from maybe spiders and dust, like in his cupboard. Perhaps the Professor was seeking aid from the spiders.

Snape then stalked across the room, wand in hand, and cast a spell that neatly wove the laces into two loops and two loose ends per shoe.

"Now, would you care to grace the rest of the world with your presence? Or do you have more important things to do? If so, I can assure you that I too have things that I would much rather be doing than accompanying you about the school."

Harry looked down, not wanting to meet the Professor's eyes. However, unlike Vernon and Petunia, Professor Snape seemed to prefer that he look him straight in the eye.

"Eyes up, Potter!" he ordered, as if to prove the point. "You are not with your relatives anymore. As long as you are with me, you will follow the rules that I set out during your first night here."

Harry remembered those well. He was, in fact, glad for them, for they gave him the boundaries he needed. The promise of punishment should he break the rules, while it didn't exactly make Harry happy, also made him feel a little more… well, _normal_, as odd as that concept seemed when he was surrounded by mad things such as moving staircases and brewing potions that even _he_ knew were unusual. The stairs above his cupboard had certainly never moved quite that much.

The rules were simple, really. Harry was to be courteous towards other adults at all times. Snape went into just how someone went about being 'courteous' in great detail, including always looking people in the eye when they were speaking to him, or when he was replying. Harry was not to leave the small 'quarters', as Snape had referred to them, unless the Professor accompanied him. He was not to talk to any of the students if he was still at the school when they returned from their holidays – though it had taken Snape a good deal of time to explain how school years and holidays worked, for Harry didn't really understand the concept of a holiday, or time away – unless Snape advised him to do so. Most importantly, though, Harry was not to touch anything at all that was even slightly magical without being directly told to do so, and he was _never_ to so much as look at the entrance to Snape's office and personal laboratory, let alone set foot inside.

"Don't get any ideas," the Professor had said sternly as he showed Harry where the rooms in question were so that he could avoid them in future. "The doors are spelled locked when I am not inside. If you attempt to break in, the wards will trap you. I assure you, it would not be a pleasant experience for you."

Harry nodded dutifully. Snape needn't have worried. He was very good at not getting ideas.

They passed that door as Snape led him away from the dungeons, the place where they lived together for the moment. Harry averted his eyes. Snape's lips turned up just a little at the sight, and he nodded, just slightly, as if in approval. Harry, of course, didn't really understand approval, so he wasn't entirely sure what he was seeing when he looked right back at Snape, just as the Professor required of him.

"Ah, Harry!" Dumbledore greeted him when they reached his office. "I'm glad that you could join us. And you too, of course, Severus."

Snape did not look at all happy about being tacked on to the end of Dumbledore's welcome as if he didn't matter as much as Harry. Harry worried for a moment that he might blame Harry himself for this. However, Snape said nothing, and Dumbledore went off on some long explanation that Harry didn't quite understand of why Harry and the teachers were all there, which had something to do with 'testing'.

Harry understood the testing itself even less than Dumbledore's speech, but Snape obviously caught sight of his uncomprehending look and informed him that it was to do with magic, and that it would be explained to him later, if necessary.

The teachers all looked dejected at the end of it. Harry felt that he had somehow let them down, but he didn't really understand how. He'd tried to do what they told him, to think about specific things and wish for them to happen and the like, but he found it very hard to concentrate on those things for long enough to wish particularly hard. He was used to his mind darting from one thought to the next. He had, in fact, conditioned his mind to do just that.

Snape led him down to his quarters – _their_ quarters, at least for the moment – and told him to sit.

"You are, it would seem, what is known as a squib. That means that your parents had magical ability, but it has not manifested – shown up, if you like – in you."

"Why am I at a magical school, then?" Harry asked. There didn't seem to be anyone else who was without magic around, though he supposed that might change when the students returned from their holiday.

"You are here because Headmaster Dumbledore, as well as many of the other teachers, had high hopes that you were magical even though you had never performed any magic. You are famous in the wizarding world, Harry Potter, for defeating a very powerful wizard, the one who killed your parents. He tried to kill you, and instead was himself destroyed. That was how you got the scar on your forehead."

Harry had seen the scar once or twice when he allowed himself to glance up into the mirror as he washed his hands while inside the bathroom. However, like the rest of his face, it was not precisely familiar to him. Petunia had told him he'd got it in the car crash that killed his parents. He hadn't thought to question that, not even after he learned that his parents hadn't actually died the way she'd said.

"Most people will find it difficult to believe that a child with no magical ability at all could perform such a feat. I'm certain that the Headmaster has an idea about how it could happen, but he has not let on to the rest of the staff or the rest of the wizarding world. Most people, in fact, don't know that you haven't shown any magical aptitude. They will expect you to arrive at Hogwarts with the rest of the first year students in a few weeks."

Harry bit his lip. "But I won't be?"

"No. Hogwarts classes teach magic. Since you are unable to learn magic, you will not be able to attend them."

Harry, to his horror, felt his eyes begin to water just a little. The one time that he'd done that before – cried like a little baby, Vernon had viciously called it – he'd received a beating like never before, so that he would remember that boys did not cry. He assumed that this meant that girls were allowed to cry, but he'd never seen a young girl before he left the house, and even then he'd only seen one or two out of the corner of his eye as Hagrid had led him along. He wasn't at all sure what exactly they did, or what they were _for_, come to that. They could have been an entirely different species, for all he knew, though he thought that Petunia must have been a girl once, and she seemed enough like Vernon to suggest otherwise, despite their differences in size.

"Will I have to go back to the house?" Harry whispered.

Snape merely sneered. "I dare say, Mr Potter, that you will never have to worry about seeing your relatives again. The Headmaster would not allow you to return to that environment. Whether you are magical or not, you are a human being, and those Muggles did not treat you as such, if Hagrid's word is to be trusted." By the look on his face, Snape did not seem to think it _was_ to be trusted at all, but he didn't openly contest it as he initially had. Harry supposed that it must have become obvious that he had actually been locked away all his life, for he didn't know things that he was fairly certain he should have, if he was normal and not just a freak.

"That, of course, means that you and I could be stuck together for a long period of time. At least until the Headmaster decides that it is someone else's turn to deal with you."

The words were callous, and the tone of voice suggested that Snape could not have cared less about him. Harry, however, knew what true uncaring was like, and that was not it. Somewhere in Snape – certainly deep, deep down, but there nonetheless – he was not all that put out by having Harry around. He was still indifferent enough that Harry wasn't scared off by the thought of it, but Harry thought that he might just be started to like the idea that there was something else there as well.

Harry looked hopefully up at the Professor. His lips turned up just a little, as close as he thought he could get to a real smile.


	6. To See More Clearly

******************PART SIX – To See More Clearly**

"And what is this?"

Harry squinted at the item Snape was pointing to on the bench. It looked just like every other blob on the bench, really, but he thought there might have been many little pieces making up that blob. It was a little shiny.

"Glass?"

Snape sighed, lowering his hand onto the end of the bench. "Did I ever mention glass being used as a potions ingredient? I think not," he replied, sounding frustrated and even more annoyed than usual. "Glass is only used in phials because it is not reactive with most potions, remember? What you are looking at is grated beetle. I told you how to identify it yesterday. Weren't you listening?"

"I was!" Harry cried. "It's just, I can't see them well enough. Maybe if I could move a little closer…"

Snape narrowed his eyes. "What exactly is it that you see?"

Harry shrugged. "Small flakes. I think I can see light shining off them."

"What colour are they?"

Harry squinted. "Colourless? No, white, I think. But they might be a really pale yellow. I just …"

"You can't see them well enough," Snape finished, concurring with Harry's original assessment. "Right, we're going to see Madam Pomfrey to get your eyes checked."

Harry didn't quite understand why his eyes had to be checked. Had he gotten something in them without knowing it? Had he hurt himself?

"Can you see better than me?" Harry asked timidly, afraid that Snape would think it was a stupid question.

Snape glanced at him before shifting his eyes back up to watch where he was leading them both.

"I am not a Healer, so I cannot be sure how well you can see. However, given that you cannot see something a foot away from you well enough to identify it, I should think so. It is to be expected, really. Years in the dark must have strained your eyes quite a bit, and your father had glasses even without having that excuse."

"You knew my father?" Harry questioned. "But I thought you said to the Headmaster that first night that you couldn't tell me stories about my parents."

Snape glowered at him, making Harry feel very small. "I said I could not tell you gushing tales of their childhoods. That does not mean that I didn't know them. Rather, it merely indicates that I did not _like_ them."

"Oh," Harry said. He looked down at the ground, feeling dejected. Everyone that knew his dad said he was a lot like him, but if Snape didn't like him…

"Potter," Snape growled. "_Harry_. You have been staying with me for nearly a year. I've attempted – with only marginal success, I might add – to teach you how to read, and to teach you the names and uses of certain things that you didn't know. More importantly, I've yet to offload you to one of the other teachers, though Merlin knows why I haven't pushed the issue."

That was true, Harry considered. After one seemingly token effort to get Harry to agree to move down to Hagrid's hut on the grounds, Snape had given up without much of a fight at all. That wasn't very much like the Professor Snape Harry knew. He hadn't, however, really considered that it might mean that Snape really didn't mind – and perhaps actually liked – Harry's presence in his life.

That was a good thing, since Harry would miss the Professor something terrible if he was forced to move away from him. It wasn't as if he wouldn't be able to deal with living with someone else, as had been the issue when he'd first arrived. He'd long since become fairly used to people showing him something other than disdain or outright hatred. Even Snape seemed to occasionally show some other sort of emotion towards him these days, come to that.

"I've even taken to showing you potions on the off chance that one day you will be able to assist me in preparing them... though without magic of your own, you would only be able to prepare ingredients, rather than actually make potions. If you cannot see that I think of you differently to your father, than you are blinder than I think you are."

Harry stopped dead in his tracks. "You want me to help you with your potions?"

There had been a time, when Harry first arrived, that he didn't think he would ever see a potion outside the Hospital Wing, for Professor Snape had forbidden him to seek out any contact with them.

"Perhaps," Snape said guardedly. "It will all depend on your progress once you can actually see enough to differentiate between the ingredients and not chop your fingers off."

Harry wondered whether it was possible to chop one's fingers off when preparing a potion. He hardly cared. Snape wanted his help! Not even the glare the teacher gave him after this pronouncement could wipe away the smile that was creeping on to his face. In fact, it only heartened him. He couldn't imagine seeing Snape looking anything other than just short of disgusted at Harry's exuberance. Nor did he want to. He liked Professor Snape just the way he was, actually.

"So if I really can't see," Harry said, "how do they fix it? _Can_ it be fixed?"

"You'd wear glasses," Snape said. "Had you been a wizard, you might have opted to undertake a risky procedure to actually correct your eyesight when you grew up, but unfortunately that option will not be open to you."

"Glasses like Headmaster Dumbledore's?" Harry asked.

Snape snorted. "Those pretentious looking excuses for him to have something to look benevolently over the top of? I think not. You'll have proper glasses, if you need them. Something big enough to actually _see_ through, I should think."

Harry thought about this. "When I can see properly, will I be able to read better? Only, the words always look a bit alike to be."

Snape looked surprised by the suggestion. It had been many months since Snape had called him a lost cause because it seemed he was never going to be able to read properly.

"It's possible," Snape said eventually.

Harry smiled. "Good. I thought maybe it was just because I'm stupid, like how I can't do magic."

Snape frowned. "Propaganda aside, the ability to do magic has little to do with intelligence. I've seen many children go through Hogwarts who can barely tie their shoelaces."

"I couldn't do that until recently," Harry pointed out.

Snape huffed. "Yes, well, that might have something to do with the fact that no one had _taught_ you to do so."

Harry considered this. "So if you taught me to do magic like you taught me the shoe-tying thing –"

"No," Snape cut him off. "You can't perform magic when you don't _have_ any magic. It's something that has to be inside you already for you to be able to use it. The tests we did with you when you arrived proved that unfortunately you are one of those people who are unable to perform magic."

"Oh," Harry said, trying not to sound too dejected. He'd let himself hope for a moment. He should have known better by now. "All right."

They walked the rest of the way to the hospital wing in silence, as if neither of them was quite certain what to say.


	7. Upside Down and Inside Out

**********************PART SEVEN – Upside Down and Inside Out**

"Harry, didn't I tell you to finish that book before coming back in here?"

Harry scowled sullenly. "I did," he lied.

Snape put down the quill he was using to irredeemably disfigure his students' papers with blood red ink. "You've been in there for all of about ten minutes since I left you. I know how fast you read. The book would have taken you nearly an hour to finish. Do not lie to me."

Harry crossed his arms over his chest, both to attempt to look tougher and as a defence should Snape choose to punish him. For two years, Harry had not broken any of the rules to a large enough extent to warrant punishment. He hated to think what punishment could be like when there was magic involved. Snape could charm a paddle to beat him so that it needn't stop when its holder got tired. Or, worse still, he could curse Harry. He'd heard Snape and Dumbledore talk of dark curses that put the victim in so much pain that they might wish that they were dead. Would the Professor get angry enough to do that?

But Snape did nothing other than continue to stare at Harry, as if waiting for him to break down. Eventually, of course, he did. There was only so much silent reproach a thirteen year old boy could take.

"I can't concentrate on it."

"That is why you need to keep going. You need to learn to stay focused on things for much longer than you currently do."

"I've been getting better," Harry argued.

Snape stood abruptly. "Not enough! You will never be useful as long as you cannot think!"

"You said yourself that I shouldn't get any ideas! Back when you showed me your office! How can I think when I'm not allowed to have ideas? There's only so long you can think about one thing without getting ideas! I should know, since I've spent almost my whole life avoiding doing just that!"

"Don't you yell at me!" Snape shouted back at him. He loomed over Harry in a threatening manner. Harry, quite sure that he was going to be hit, and then punished quite thoroughly, dropped to the floor and flung his arm over his head as if to protect him.

Nothing happened.

Harry opened his eyes to see that there was no one in front of him. Snape had disappeared. In fact, so had all the furniture.

"Harry?" a voice called from above him. The voice sounded like Snape's, but he'd never heard it so… worried? Incredulous? He wasn't quite sure, but it at least didn't sound furious anymore.

Harry looked up, only to see Snape suspended above him, upside down, along with all the furniture. How had he gotten up there? Snape's eyes were wide. Harry looked back at the ground he was kneeling on. Or, rather, the ceiling he was kneeling on, he realised with a start, for it was bare other than a spider web suspended between the walls in the corner. He let out a panicked cry and then felt himself falling.

Snape caught him with some kind of levitation charm and turned his body around the right way, finally setting him back down on his feet, which promptly nearly collapsed from underneath him. But Snape was right there, holding him steady with a grip on each of Harry's upper arms.

"That was very impressive," Snape said when Harry's breathing had slowed and his legs felt a little less wobbly. The older man pulled back from Harry, letting him stand on his own, so that he could look at him.

"Did I… did I just do magic?" Harry breathed.

Snape smirked at him, as close as he would ever come to a smile. "I do believe you did. Did you think that I would hit you?"

Harry nodded slowly, worried that Snape would be unhappy with him.

"I wouldn't," Snape assured him. Harry blinked. "When I said you would be punished if you broke my rules, I meant that I would punish you as I would a student. They receive detention when they misbehave. I would have given you some kind of extra work to do."

"Oh," Harry said.

"Your relatives didn't treat you as normal people would have. Headmaster Dumbledore and I have told you that before. And I also told you, didn't I, that if you weren't sure about how something was done, you should ask me?"

Harry nodded, and Snape sighed.

"Well, it's just as well, I suppose. How else would we have discovered that you aren't a squib after all?"

"I'm not?" Harry asked, confused. "So I'm a wizard?"

"Yes, though you have no control over your magic yet, obviously. Why did you never use it before? Didn't you ever try to protect yourself against your aunt and uncle? Didn't you ever get angry or afraid when they were going to punish you?"

Harry shook his head. "I just… that was just how it happened. There was no point being angry or afraid, because it wouldn't change anything. And, you know, I couldn't let myself feel anything that strong, or focus too much on anything in particular, because I knew it would give me ideas, and that would just make things worse.

"But just before, I got angry. At least, I think it was anger. I don't think I've ever felt that way before. Then, when I thought you were going to punish me for it, I just… I was scared, because you're a wizard and how do I really know what you're capable of?"

Snape nodded in acceptance of his explanation.

"You're right, you don't. But if you're going to decide that you have magic when you're thirteen years old, after you should already have started school, then I think that it's probably best that someone teach you just what a wizard can do, before you get yourself killed."

"My magic could kill me?" Harry asked. Harry had been well aware that one of the other witches or wizards around him – the adults, at least, who knew how to properly _use_ their magic – could have likely snuffed him out with a couple of words, or maybe even a thought. It had never occurred to him that they might be at risk from their own magic.

Snape, however, merely looked oddly amused. "Only if you use it very stupidly. And even then, it's unlikely. Though it would make my position as a teacher a lot easier if the more idiotic students frequently offed themselves by accident."

Harry peered up at Snape, who was still significantly taller than him. "Will I be one of your students, then?" he asked.

Snape sighed. "I'd be surprised if I wasn't the very first person Headmaster Dumbledore approached about teaching you. Of course, that will mean I'll very quickly grow to hate you. Students are abysmal creatures, as a rule. I can't abide them. I imagine you'll be the worst of all."

Harry had spent enough time around Snape to learn to recognise what the man had referred to as 'sarcasm'.

He grinned.


	8. A Helpless Foe

**************************PART EIGHT – A Helpless Foe**

"The Daily Prophet has printed Harry Potter's story on the front page," Snape declared to the old man sitting across the office. "The whole world now knows that their boy hero is still alive, but is not as much of a hero as expected. The whole wizarding world thinks he's a squib."

Dumbledore smiled, his eyes twinkling. "Well, let's not enlighten them too early in the game, then."

"The Dark Lord will eventually be drawn out of hiding by this news. He may not be strong enough to face the wizarding world, but he's still gaining strength," Snape said, gesturing to the mark on his arm that seemed to grow darker and more sinister by the day. "As soon as he returns, I imagine that he will attempt to make an example of the boy."

"But he has power that the Dark Lord knows not, remember?" Dumbledore reassured him. "Voldemort will expect his enemy to be helpless, but Harry will be at least a little trained in magic. The sooner Voldemort strikes, the better. If he is still weak, Harry will have a fighting chance."

"And what if he waits just long enough that he's no longer weak but Harry is not yet properly trained?" Snape shot back. "If that were the case, the boy wouldn't last thirty seconds against him, if that."

"I feel sure that it will be months before he can return to a body," Dumbledore countered calmly, "even assuming that he has someone who can help him do so."

"Harry might not be ready in a few months."

Dumbledore looked at Snape over the rim of his half-moon spectacles. His face was serious, even grave. "We will just have to train him extra hard, then, to make sure that, should the worst happen, he _is_ ready for it."

Snape snorted. "And what shall I tell the boy about precisely why he has to spend so many hours a day studying charms and curses and counter-hexes that he barely has time to sleep anymore? He's well aware that the other students are only in classes for part of the day. I can only justify so much by telling him he needs to catch up – he only missed out on about two years of classes with the others, after all. Other than that... Won't you ever tell him about the prophecy you're putting all of your hopes in?"

"Why don't you?" Dumbledore suggested mildly. "You could tell him about the part you overheard and told Voldemort, the part that got his parent's killed and him put into the 'care' of his relatives. No, I think we both have our reasons for keeping silent at this point in time."

Snape glared at his mentor. He would like to have said, 'Fuck you.' Instead, he shook his head at the Headmaster reprovingly, his dark eyes glittering in an entirely different way to how the Headmaster's usually twinkled merrily away. A moment later, Snape stormed out of the office, wishing he could look back and curse the man. Of course, he was too wary of what that might mean for his safety to attempt such a reckless move.

Only an idiot underestimated Albus Dumbledore. Only someone who was completely _suicidal_ purposely went up against him. Severus Snape liked to believe that he was neither of those things.

When he arrived back at his own office, he was stunned to find that Harry was there waiting for him. Or, rather, he was there working, as if Snape wouldn't be back for a good deal longer. When the boy noticed that his teacher had entered the office, he looked wide-eyed for a moment, as if he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't be doing.

And he had been, Snape noted quickly, for he stepped away to reveal a potion brewing in a standard pewter cauldron, the one that he'd pointed to when he'd told Harry the type the students all used. As if to add insult to injury, the potion brewing away perfectly was the first one he taught to the first year classes, a cure for boils. He'd told Harry that much as well.

Snape realised that he'd practically given the boy a step-by-step guide on exactly how to start his potions career. By also allowing him access to his office and his private stores, he'd practically invited the boy to attempt to do so behind his back.

So much for him not being an idiot, then.

Snape should have seen it coming. He had, in fact, back when the boy first moved in with him, when he'd forbidden any entrance into his brewing areas all together. That had been long before the familiarity of the boy's presence and his own constant assertions that Harry had to think for himself or he'd never learn magical control had allowed Potter to come up with a plan to get around Snape's restrictions.

Snape wasn't sure whether Harry would have been in Gryffindor for the pure courage it must have taken to go behind Snape's back, or in Slytherin for the conniving it took to manipulate him and make him trust the boy enough to allow this to occur.

Nor was Snape quite certain whether he was angry that his rules had been broken, or proud that Harry had been willing to do so in order to please him. For this effort was, apparently, Harry's way of involving himself in something that he knew Snape himself enjoyed and thought highly of. As guilty as the boy looked, Snape could see that he was still sort of showing off what he had done as if it was an accomplishment.

It might have been easier to punish him if it _hadn't_ been an accomplishment of sorts, actually. Damn perfect potion.

Snape decided that he was at least a little bit pleased by the boy's daring. That, however, didn't stop him from making Harry scrub the office down as punishment. The boy didn't even seem to mind doing so, so Snape also spent the whole time verbally berating him for doing something dangerous without any supervision.

The boy was cheeky enough to ask Snape if he would supervise him the next time, then.

Snape wished he was as hardened against Harry Potter's big pleading eyes (seemingly magnified behind his glasses) as he was against the other students'. Maybe then he could have actually refused him.

Well, if Harry Potter had to learn as much as he could as quickly as he could in order to give himself the best chance of not being killed, Snape supposed it was probably a good idea that they get a start on Potions as quickly as possible.

That was how he justified the easy way he folded to the boy's wishes, anyway.


	9. Expressions of Like

******************************PART NINE – Expressions of Like**

Snape hadn't been particularly happy at the idea of having to let Harry walk to the Headmaster's office on his own. However, he had a class to teach and couldn't go with him, so there wasn't much choice. However wary he might be of Harry making his way around the school on his own, Snape knew he was being ridiculous. Students managed just that all the time, and Harry Potter was certainly no less able to take care of himself than most of those poor excuses for witches and wizards. Besides, he'd be with the Headmaster for most of that time. There was no safer place in the entire wizarding world for him to be than inside that office with Albus Dumbledore himself.

Regardless, that didn't mean that Snape didn't worry slightly when the boy didn't return until lunch was almost over. Or that he didn't feel completely foolish the whole time he was worrying, either.

Harry walked in, looking a little dubious, if Snape were to give his opinion. Which, of course, he would have been only too happy to do if he hadn't had better things to speak about at that moment.

"What did the Headmaster want?" he queried.

Harry shrugged. "More of the same. He wanted to check up on my progress with the learning and 'impress upon' me how serious the whole thing is. He thinks that it won't be long until Voldemort gets back to having a body, and then I'll have to face him. Oh, and there was something about a prophecy and a bunch of Horcruxes in there as well."

Snape, who had been sorting the papers on his desk into their correct piles, froze. Harry scrutinised him, though his eyes did not look accusing when Snape finally looked up.

"Yeah," Harry said mildly, "I figured that you knew about it. As soon as he told me about it, I thought, 'Oh yeah. There's the big secret.' You've always been so guarded about your reasons for trying to make me learn as much as I can, and to do it quickly. Now I know why. It's good, I guess. The knowing. Better now than finding out from Voldemort just as he's about to kill me."

"Don't say his name," Snape barked.

Harry looked taken aback. "Whose? Voldemort's?"

"_Don't_," Snape repeated. "You have no idea how powerful he is. Who knows what saying his name might do."

Harry looked speculatively at him. "Is that why you never told me? Because you're afraid of him? You think I can't win, is that it? Kind of silly to bother training me then."

"No," Snape said after a long pause, looking Harry in the eye as he'd always taught Harry himself was the correct thing to do, when he was a boy of a more tender age. The person who stood before him was not a boy, nor merely a teenager. Life had sculpted him into an adult, if still a very young and even slightly immature one. It was time Snape treated him in accordance with his mental age, rather than by looking at that still-innocent face and judging what he should know due to that alone.

"That's not why," Snape continued, his voice deadly quiet. "Don't pretend you understand me for a second. You've _no idea_ why I didn't tell you."

"So tell me now," Harry challenged.

"You really want to know?" Snape asked wryly. He received a nod to the affirmative. "Well then. I didn't tell you because I heard that prophecy being made. Oh, Dumbledore was the only one to hear the whole thing, just as he would have told you, but I heard the start before I was interrupted. Then I went and told the Dark Lord all that I had heard. You see, I was his loyal Death Eater." Snape unbuttoned the wrist of his robes and pushed the black material up his left arm, revealing his Dark Mark. "Dumbledore would have told you what this means, I'll assume."

Harry, with a look of shock on his face, nodded.

"Then you'll understand what I mean when I say that you don't understand a thing. You're sheltered, Harry Potter. You know nothing of the real world, because you've never been out in it. You don't even know about the man you've been living with for almost five years now."

"But you're training me to get rid of him," Harry protested.

"But I was the reason your parents were killed," Snape countered. "Tell me which is more important to you?"

Harry looked torn for a moment, but then his face took on a stubborn set. "I never knew my parents, but I know you. Whatever you did before, you aren't that person now."

"I'm the same person I've always been," Snape scoffed.

"But you've made different decisions. Better ones. You're right; I don't know anything about the world, really. But after, like you said, nearly _five years_ of living with you, I know you. Don't tell me that I don't. If in five years I've not seen one sign that you're a Death Eater – if the only sign there is at all is the mark on your arm – then you're no true Death Eater."

"The wizarding population of Britain would disagree with you," Snape said. "If not for the Headmaster, I would be in Azkaban. I've told you what Azkaban is, haven't I?"

Harry nodded. "But that just proves my point. They don't know you. Dumbledore and I do. Is it any wonder that we're the only ones that trust you?"

"You shouldn't trust me. You should hate me! I could get you killed!"

Harry giggled hysterically. "I think I can do that well enough on my own, thanks. In fact, considering that it's me with the death warrant over his head, I think I'm much more likely to get _you_ killed."

"I'd been taking care of myself for years before you showed up in the world," Snape muttered, his voice purposely too low for Harry to quite make out the words.

Apparently, unable to tell what he'd said, Harry just chose to ignore the fact that he'd spoken at all. "I don't hate you," he said. "I like you. Here –" Harry said, and then walked across the room and, before Snape fully understood what was happening, grabbed Snape by the front of the robes and pulled him down. Their lips met in a clumsy kiss. The boy's first, he was betting, unless his relatives' punishments had headed in a much different direction than the boy had led them all to believe.

"See?" Harry breathed when he pulled away bare moments later. "I like you."

Snape knew that his eyes must be wide, and was simply thankful that his jaw wasn't scraping the floor as well. "You're fifteen!" he protested.

Now Harry seemed confused. "So?"

"So," Snape said, his anger cold, "either your aunt and uncle damaged your mind much more than I'd originally anticipated, or you have no idea what you just did. Frankly, I'm not sure where my vote lies after that childish showing."

"I wanted you to understand that I like you!" Harry exclaimed.

Snape laughed dryly. "Oh, yes, you have certainly succeeded in that. Where did you even learn about such things? That's called a kiss, by the way, which I'm betting you didn't even know. And here I thought I'd at the very least taught that doing things that you don't know the meaning of can be dangerous. Apparently I have overestimated your ability to actually apply what you've been taught to real life situations."

Harry looked puzzled that Snape was taking the whole thing so badly. "But that's just with spells and other magical stuff. This... The students in the hall –"

"Ah, yes, _the students_. They are walking hormones, the lot of them. If one tells the other they like them, it's practically a declaration of marriage. Until five minutes later, when the next fling comes along."

"Hormones, Professor?"

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. "I can't even _believe_ that this is happening to me. Right then, Potter." Harry flinched, as Snape expected; he hadn't called him 'Potter' in years. "We're going to see Madam Pomfrey so that you and she can have a little chat. There are a lot of things I will do for Albus Dumbledore and his cause, but giving a fifteen year old boy, especially _you_, 'the talk' is not numbered among them."


	10. Reaffirmation

**********************************PART TEN – Reaffirmation**

"It's my birthday today," Harry announced.

The professor looked up from where he was sitting in the living room of their shared quarters, glaring at the young man. "Yes, congratulations. You are technically now an adult under the eyes of the wizarding world. You must be proud. However, you are forgetting that I was the one who alerted you to your upcoming seventeenth birthday, so I know very well what day it is."

Harry merely smiled. Smiles had come much easier lately, now that he had accepted his fate and made a decision about his future. It had been hard for a while there, trying to accept that he would probably die trying to save a wizarding world he'd never known from a madman he'd never met. Then he realised that in saving the wizarding world, he would be saving Hogwarts as well. Hogwarts was the only real home he'd ever known, for all that he'd been given very little chance to explore it unsupervised.

He would fight to save his home, rather than a bunch of unknown people who would not even thank him if he succeeded, for it was just what was _expected_ of him.

Even better, he would fight for those few people in the school that he considered family. Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Hagrid and Madam Pomfrey, among others. He'd even become close with a few of the students around his age once his magic had caught up with – and, indeed, in many cases surpassed – their own, and he'd been allowed to roam the school on his own every once in a while, for by now he could largely defend himself against the other students, or even any outside visitors to the school, should he get into some sort of an altercation.

Then, of course, there was the fact that he'd be fighting for Severus as well. That was the most important thing of all.

He was always 'Severus' in Harry's thoughts as of late, though Harry wouldn't dare disrespect the man by calling him that aloud unless he was explicitly given permission. Even so, he thought it was a good sign that he was seeing the man like more of an equal. If only Severus would see him the same way.

"So," Harry said, "since you seem to know so much about my birthday, did you get me anything?"

"Get you anything?" Snape questioned, his eyebrows now raised. "What would I possibly get you?"

"Presents, of course! Hagrid said that friends and family give each other presents. You're my family. So I want presents."

Snape looked stony-faced. "When did you become such a brat? You'd think I would have noticed."

Harry grinned cheekily. "About the time Madam Pomfrey told me about 'the birds and the bees'. Which, of course, birds and bees couldn't possibly have sex _together_, so I sort of just gave up the idea of that bit of it straight away, but I had a good _long_ think about the bees and the bees. Much more compatible."

Snape, who'd had a full mouth full of hot coffee, sprayed the dark liquid all over the book he was reading. He gave Harry a disgusted look as he cleaned up after himself.

"You, Harry Potter, have become as much a walking hormone as the rest of the brats who torture me all day long. I think I may have to get rid of you if I wish to have any reprieve."

Harry would once have worried that Severus was being serious. However, he'd long ago learned to recognise when he was being snarky just for the sake of it, and when he was actually irritated.

After a long silence between them, Harry sighed and unbuttoned the top of his robe, as if to make himself more comfortable, and flung himself into the armchair beside the one Severus was residing in.

"Well, if you haven't already arranged for a present, I know what you could give me."

Snape sighed. He knew that he was falling into whatever trap the scheming boy had set for him, but he was just too tired to quite bring himself to care right then. "And what would that be, pray tell?"

Harry shrugged. "A kiss."

Snape's teeth snapped together painfully to stop his first reaction from getting out. Eventually, when he had composed himself enough not to throw Harry out of their rooms by his ear, he said, "I thought you said Madam Pomfrey gave you the talk, and you'd thought it over."

"She did," Harry admitted. "But, well, there was a _lot_ of thinking. Remember, you were the one who taught me how to keep my mind focused on one thing for a long time."

Snape rolled his eyes. "I did _not_ mean for that thing to be your prick!"

Again Harry shrugged. "Well, unlucky. I couldn't really help it. Madam Pomfrey told me it was something to do with being a teenager. And, well, thinking about it for so long started giving me _ideas_, you know."

Snape snorted. "I knew I should never have told you ideas weren't always a bad thing."

"Well, it stuck, whether you wanted it to or not," Harry claimed happily.

"There are some ideas that should not be acted upon," Snape warned.

"And there are some that should. You said once that anything I thought about for a long time and still wanted at the end of it all, was probably worth really considering. Well, I want –"

"It's not normal," Snape interrupted. "Did Madam Pomfrey not tell you that sex is to occur between males and females. Do I need to send you back there?"

Harry grinned devilishly. "She did. But then she said that I shouldn't be surprised if I ever found wizards with wizards or witches with witches, because it was _perfectly normal_, even if it wasn't done by the majority. Like I said: bees and bees. It makes a lot more sense."

"What if I said that I didn't want it?" Snape asked sharply. "You're too young, and I've known you since you were only eleven years old. I taught you about the world. You are my _student_, and it's unethical, whether it's lawful now that you're of age or not."

Harry knew that he hadn't quite stopped himself from looking obviously hurt by that, but he did manage to quickly force a smile back onto his face. "I'd leave you alone, if that was the case," he replied. "But only if you proved to me that you really didn't want it. Come on, Professor, just one kiss."

Snape stood abruptly, and Harry did the same so that he was not being towered over by the Potions Master. "I am not kissing someone who refers to me as Professor, and that is final!"

"Severus, then," Harry begged, and was glad when the man made no comment about him taking the liberty of using his name. "Please."

He moved in close enough that he was certain he'd have been able to feel Severus's body heat if not for the robes, which were heavy due to the chill that cooled the dungeons even in the middle of summer.

"I'm not your student," Harry reminded him. "Not really. I'm not even part of Hogwarts, apart from living here. None of your students are even here right now. They're on holidays, remember?"

"You're a child."

"I'm an adult. The law says so. And as for the rest, I probably won't live to see next year, let alone whatever age I would have to be to convince you that I was emotionally mature. All I can say is that I've had to deal with a lot more than most people my age. I _feel_ like an adult. That should be enough."

"You should be with someone your own age," Snape said bitterly.

"I barely know any of them," Harry retorted. "And I certainly don't know any of the girls, nor do I really want to know them that way, so I think it's pretty clear that I'd rather be with someone of my own gender. Why shouldn't it be you?"

"Oh, _well then_," Snape scoffed. "Since I'm obviously your only available option..."

"Hey, that's not what I meant and you know it!" Harry said. "I meant that, unlike them, I know _you_, and I want it to be _you_, so why shouldn't it be?"

"Because I'd be taking advantage of you," Snape returned simply. "I have been one of the few constants in your life since you left your relatives. You have spent hours each day exclusively in my presence. Of course, if you're interested in men, you might end up latching onto me as an object of you adolescent sexual interest, putting aside the fact that I'm significantly older than you are and by no means attractive. But that doesn't mean that I should take advantage and use that interest against you. I will not do that."

"You won't be taking advantage of me," Harry protested. "I want it, and I think you want it, too. And we care for each other, whether you'll admit that or not. We're already everything that lovers should be, especially since I'm pretty damn certain that I love you. Why can't you see that?"

Harry pushed himself up onto his toes so that he could kiss Snape. Like their first kiss, it was inexperienced. Unlike their first kiss, though, it was not short and chaste, broken off practically immediately. Snape wondered how and where Harry had realised that there could be tongue involved in a kiss. He tried to shove away a small spark of jealousy that ignited in him against his wish.

It was Harry who broke away first, for all that part of Snape's mind was shouting for him to shove the boy away from him and run for it. The thing of it was, there was another part of Snape's mind that was begging him to hold on for as long as he could. That part of him didn't seem to care about any of the reasons why this was a completely moronic idea. That part certainly was also advocating the idea that he would be more than willing to hang onto Harry for as long as it took for Harry to get bored with him and move onto someone his own age.

"Just consider it," Harry whispered, as he disappeared into the small room that had once been Snape's study, but had long since belonged to Harry.

It took an embarrassingly long time for Snape's heartbeat to return to normal.


	11. Farewells

**************************************PART ELEVEN – Farewells**

"It's done," Harry said, collapsing onto his bed. "The last Horcrux is gone."

"The Headmaster?" Snape questioned from where he stood in the doorway after following a shell-shocked looking Harry in from the front door of their quarters. His voice did not contain as much hope, even false hope, as he'd initially expected it to.

Harry shook his head. "Gone." Even had the word not conveyed exactly how Harry felt about what had happened, one look at his eyes would have done so. They looked… well, dead. He would do anything Harry asked him – short of that one thing that they both most wanted, Snape amended – to put the spark that had appeared in them in the last few years back where it belonged. He was meant to be the permanently damaged goods in their relationship, whatever that relationship turned out to be. Harry, for all that he should have been shattered a thousand times over by what life had repeatedly thrown his way, had somehow come out remarkably unscathed until now. That was how it should always have been.

"I'll have to go soon. To face Voldemort." For once, Snape didn't order Harry not to say the name. There really wasn't much point in such caution when Harry was about to go and purposely _challenge_ the Dark Lord in next to no time at all. "I'll have to fight him before he realises what's been done; that he has no Horcruxes left," Harry added.

"Fine," Snape said shortly. "We'll go tomorrow. Not now – you need to get some sleep first. You won't be any good in battle if you're not alert enough to think of what curse you should be throwing."

"I don't want you to come with me," Harry mumbled into his pillow. Snape just barely made out the words, but he was sure he wasn't mistaken.

"I'll be there whether you want me to be or not," Snape said. "The whole Order will be there for backup."

Harry shook his head. "It has to be done by just me. The rest of you will just be in unnecessary danger."

"Oh, and who will capture the Death Eaters when you win?"

Both of them silently noted the use of the word 'when' rather than 'if'.

"I'll notify the Aurors to wait for my contact, so that they're ready," Harry said, shrugging as well as he could while lying down in that position.

"And what if you kill the Dark Lord only to be defeated yourself by his remaining loyal servants?"

Harry shrugged again. "That would be a bit unlucky, wouldn't it? I'll have to watch out for that."

Snape gritted his teeth. "Fine. We'll discuss this in the morning."

By this, of course, he meant that when morning came, he would leave the school with Harry, regardless of what the boy wanted. He was fairly certain that Harry understood that he meant exactly that, but he said nothing to contradict Snape's solution to the problem.

"Right," Harry replied, and Snape could tell that he wasn't fooled in the slightest. However, they were both ready to let it go. For now, at least.

"I want you to make love to me tonight," Harry announced suddenly, sitting up so that he was balanced on the edge of the bed instead of sprawled artlessly across it.

Snape snorted. "I have told you no literally _hundreds_ of times. Tonight is no different. And 'making love'?" Snape's face clearly conveyed his distaste for the sappy term.

Harry scowled. "Make love, have sex, fuck, screw like rabbits, whatever. I don't care what you want to call it, I just want to _do_ it, already. And tonight _is_ different. Of course it is. You know it is."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "I see no difference. You are no older or wiser than you were last time you asked – which was yesterday, if I recall correctly. You are still my student, regardless of whether you're technically a _Hogwarts_ student or not. You will still have another hundred opportunities to pester me with that same question before you finally become sick of it and rush out to shag a girl your own age, with whom you will settle down and have a family and live happily ever after. Or before you have what the papers will undoubtedly call a 'whirlwind affair', or something equally disgusting, with some brainless pin-up Quidditch player, if other males really _are_ the way you choose to go." The sarcasm in his voice couldn't have even been carved with a knife, it was so thick.

"I don't want some pin-up boy, either. You know that. And I could be dead by this time tomorrow!" Harry retorted. "I think that's a little different to 'usual'."

"Not really," Snape returned smoothly. "Every one of us could die at any second, if you truly want to get philosophical about it. You are no more likely to die tomorrow than at any other time in your life."

Harry snorted his disbelief, but wisely kept his mouth shut, for Snape was on a roll.

"You will not die tomorrow. I can almost guarantee it. The Dark Lord will not be expecting you, or at least not expecting someone who is powerful enough in his magic to challenge him. You will catch him off guard and you will defeat him."

"Well, for luck, then?" Harry wheedled. "'Almost guaranteeing' leaves a little room for doubt, doesn't it? Come on, just do it. Just to make sure I do get back all right, yeah?"

Snape looked unimpressed, but then he eventually sighed. "I will make you a deal. You know that I never usually make deals of any sort, so this is certainly a momentous occasion and I hope you give it the proper appreciation it deserves."

Harry looked attentive, at least. Good, Snape thought. He had little doubt that Harry wouldn't want to miss a word of _this_.

Snape continued, "_When_ you defeat the Dark Lord and we – the _two_ of us, because I'll be right there with you – return back here victorious, I will fuck you into the mattress. Or the wall. Or over the desk. Take your pick of locations, really. By then, you'll no longer be my student, because the task I've been training you for will be complete, so you'll finally get your own way. As if you don't usually, you spoiled brat."

Harry looked wide-eyed. Eventually he laughed.

"So, wait, all I had to do to get you to sleep with me was kill Voldemort?"

Snape winced at the name. There might be little use in preventing Harry from saying it at this stage, but that didn't mean it made Snape comfortable.

Harry's laughter rose in volume until Snape feared that he had suddenly and unexpectedly gone insane. What poor timing, he thought to himself, bemused by Harry's behaviour. Just when the wizarding world had some chance of being freed from the Dark Lord's rein, their boy hero falls off the rails. Well, Snape thought, it would serve the lot of them (himself included) right for placing such a large burden on someone so young.

"If I'd known that," Harry finally breathed through amused gasps, "I'd have spent the time I used trying to persuade you to sleep with me on finding the Horcruxes and getting the job done instead."

"You should have done that anyway," Snape admonished. However, he could not find it in himself to truly be all that stern with Harry. He was legally and mentally an adult now. It wasn't up to Snape to discipline him and keep him in line any longer. Thank Merlin.

Harry shrugged, still chuckling slightly. "Well, you know teenagers. All hormones. You really shouldn't have expected much better."

"I'll remember that the next time I decide to train a boy to defeat a Dark Wizard for seven years and then consider having sex with him at the end of it all," Snape said sardonically.

Harry snorted. "You'd better not. I'd kill him." His voice was beginning to sound even more tired. Harry manoeuvred himself on the bed so that his head lay on the pillow.

"And doom the wizarding world?" Snape goaded.

"Damn right I would. They can look out for themselves next time. After tomorrow, I'm done."

Severus wondered just how serious Harry was about that statement. Perhaps it was just a continuation of the joke or the tired ramblings of a nervous young man, but Snape still had the feeling that he meant exactly what he'd said.

"Well then," Snape said, "let's just get you through tomorrow in one piece and you'll never have to worry about the wizarding world again. Get some sleep, Harry."

Harry muttered unintelligibly, rolling himself into a more comfortable position. Severus watched him for a few moments more before quietly vacating the room to seek out some sleep for himself.

He just hoped he could shut out his racing nerves long enough to slip into unconsciousness as easily as Harry apparently could.


	12. The Light Beyond the Cloud

******************************************PART TWELVE – The Light Beyond the Cloud**

He really should have expected it. Thinking back on the kinds of things that Harry had done in the past, since he'd realised that he could be somewhat independent without being sanctioned for it, he really should have seen it coming.

But he hadn't.

So now Severus Snape was magically restrained up against the wall of his own quarters, his wand nowhere to be seen, cursing Harry Potter and his need to do things alone, even as he prayed to gods he didn't even believe in that the boy – the man – would return safely.

He hung against the wall thinking, for there was nothing to do but think and wait and _worry_ until Harry came back, or until someone came and find him with news, preferably of the good variety.

He thought about how Harry was out there, presumably all alone, against a wizard who may or may not, in his present form, be more powerful and of stronger wit than the younger man.

He thought about how Harry had kissed him before he left, and used Snape's moment of disorientation to take advantage of his guard being down so that he could stop him from accompanying Harry into battle.

Most of all, though, Snape thought about how much he wanted to fulfil the deal he'd made with Harry, against his better judgement, even though the part of that deal where Snape himself would be right there with Harry the whole time had already been violated. He almost wished he'd done as Harry wanted the previous night, now that his mind was screaming at him about the wrenching possibility that he might not actually ever see Harry Potter again (or not _alive_, at least), let alone get the opportunity to finally _be with_ him.

Still, Snape supposed that at least this way they would either start their sexual relationship without Snape's conscience screaming at him and ruining the whole damn thing for both of them, or they would not start it at all. He told himself that that was a good thing. It was worth torturing himself over just a little.

When Harry walked into their quarters, Snape's sigh of relief was entirely audible. Harry exhaustedly flicked his wand in the older man's direction and the bindings evaporated like steam.

"You're back," Snape stated, kicking himself over the fact that his usual sharp tongue seemed to have taken a vacation from the dungeons at exactly the wrong moment.

"I am," Harry replied, collapsing on Snape's bed. Snape surveyed him from a few feet away, still leaning against the wall, for all that his legs hurt and he wanted to lie down beside the young man.

"How did you do it?" he asked instead.

Harry shook his head. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not say. It's over. That's all that matters. If I start blabbing my story about, I'll become really famous, won't I? I'd really rather not, if that's the case. I think I'd prefer to just go back to being a squib."

"What?" Snape blurted out, stunned. "But Potter, your future …"

"It's Harry, remember? And _I_ remember correctly," Potter said with a mischievous smile, "my teacher once offered to allow me to help him with his potions, even when I couldn't use magic. I wonder whether that offer is still on the table."

Snape looked him over with piercing eyes. "You could do so much better."

Harry raised his eyebrows. Then he stood and leaned over, pulling Snape towards him so that Harry could kiss the other man softly on the lips. "Really? I could? I didn't think it got much better than this."

Severus Snape was not a soppy man. In fact, he detested sentiment. However, even he had to admit, as Harry pulled him down on top of him on Snape's own bed, that the younger man may well have been right.

That didn't mean he had to like it, though.****************************************

~FIN~  



End file.
